Get your own custom 3D-printed doll in Makielab's public alpha

A startup called Makielab is hoping to disrupt the toy market by 3D-printing customised dolls to your exact specifications and offering an identical online avatar doppelganger. Or dollpelganger. "Makies is currently what looks like an action-figure builder, but it's a bit more than that," explains Alice Taylor, CEO of the company and former commissioning editor for education at Channel 4, in an email to Wired.co.uk. "While Makies means a customer can come and build and create the action doll of their choosing, they also get an avatar version too, which happens to be standing in a 3D space. Stuff that you do digitally will result in physical unlockables, and vice versa."

Taylor has been experimenting with the idea of dolls that can talk to the web for some time. In early 2000, she set up stortroopers.com, which allowed users to build Creative Commons-licensed avatars on the web. A decade later, while in the basement of the NYC Toy Fair looking at digital toy avatars that were physically and commercially separated from the "real" dolls on the floor above, she had a brainwave. "I was aware of 3D printing anyway, and wondered whether you could build an avatar-maker that could automatically output a toy and I also wondered whether that toy could then affect the digital world it had come from, [to create] an infinite loop of play."

3D printing offers a host of benefits compared to the traditional injection moulding techniques usually used to make toys. Every creation can be uniquely customised, and can also be prototyped with ease. "We can make unique toys for individuals, plus continually tweak an idea ('Hey, can you make the elven ears bigger?') and rapidly produce new bits and pieces ('Hey I want shoes like this. No problem, those will be ready tomorrow!')," says Taylor.

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However, she cautions that 3D printing shouldn't be seen as the future of manufacturing.

Neither of the two main types of 3D printing are as cheap, fast or produce as smooth a finish as injection moulding. Nor can they cope with the range of colours often required in toys. "So 3D printing is not exactly ready to replace injection moulding today," says Taylor. "And won't be until it can compete head to head with those factors -- speed, price, colours. Our action dolls are made in London, and we send a batch of faces to print and have them back within four days. In the future, with our own machines, it'll be same-day stuff. Boy is that an exciting thought."

Right now, the Makie dolls are more of a shell for hackers and makers to tinker with than an entertainment proposition for a young child. The interior of the head fits a Lilypad Arduino, and there's room in the neck and body for batteries and more. "We're also planning sneaky things with what we call data freckles -- photographable patterns that can be interfaced with," says Taylor.

In time, once they've passed through the appropriate toy safety testing processes and more eyes, hair and clothes have been designed, games and challenges will be deployed on the site that kids can interact with. "To be honest, our biggest problem is there's so much awesome stuff to do, and we are limited by time and money," says Taylor. "It's immensely frustrating because the opportunities really do feel endless. But we're having so much fun, too, that it's just about bearable."